WIP : "Wildfire" Thumbnails + Sketch

Hi everyone, 

So, as you may know, I am working on a big painting at the moment.
I suspect that piece will take a little while to complete, and it is not one I feel I can rush on.
It is an intimidating painting that I want to be able to take my time with. 

So while I work on that, I also want to get some smaller pieces ready. Having less ambitious items to focus on, on and off, helps me keep myself fresh and entertained while I work on a bigger piece. Plus it means I can send out rewards as well as have content to upload to social media. 

So I've embarked on a small project to create 5 paintings in a few days, ideally 5 days (a painting a day), but that might be too ambitious, so I'll give myself a week and see where that goes. 

The aim of that project is to help me shed my habit of overthinking and overwork concepts, and push me to jump into ideas before I feel like they are perfect, which is definitely a habit that allows me to hide my procrastination and fear of starting behind a fake veneer of productivity. XD

I have chosen 5 of my favourite sketches as starter ideas, and have been expanding them all as thumbnails. 

I will have a post for each, and here's the first one .

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"WILDFIRE" Starter Sketch + Thumbnails + Exploratory Sketch

My starter sketch was this piece from a little while back : 

It was intended as a play on the Morel mushroom cap.
I liked the idea but didn't really expand on it before moving on to other pieces. But it did linger in my mind as something I wanted to explore. 

So I started playing with the concept in thumbnails. 

I tried a few poses, and a few rough ideas for the background, and then took it a little further by doing a more detailed sketch. 

I am also not sure how I want to tangled branches on the character's body to look.
I went for branches in the sketch above, but I still like the idea of the mushroom cap also, so I need to think about that further. 

I want the inside of the "head" to be burning and smoking, and I would like the environment around the character to be a reflection of that inner destruction, in a similar way to my old "Kindling" painting (In fact, this piece will be quite reminiscent of that painting).

For the background, I am hesitating between a wheat field that would be cut down and dry, to add some narrative tension, or a more desolate and bare landscape, such as a desert or rock formation. I'll keep exploring and keep you updated!

Although I had the character in mind for a while now, the background details and poses are heavily inspired by these gorgeous pictures by photographer Alessio Albi.
I had the idea for the field before I found his pictures, but they cemented the concept in my head once I stumbled upon them. They are the images that made me wonder if a desert or rocks wouldn't be interesting also.
Unusually for me, I used the direct photographs as references for the thumbnails, but I don't intend on using them as heavily for the final piece.
I do love the poses, but I also explored some myself and have personal pictures with alternatives I like, and I tend to be more comfortable using myself as a direct reference.
I do however, love these images for inspiration. 

http://www.alessioalbiphotography.com/

I also had the painting "Christina's World" by Andrew Wyeth lingering in my mind while I was drawing, and I might make my final painting as an homage to this amazing piece, if I do decide to go for a field. 

Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth

Here are a couple of the images that initially inspired the field idea. I absolutely adore the type of intense lighting a storm gives a scene, and how the contrasting complementary colours really add a dramatic flare to the images.
You know how much I like me some dramatic lighting...XD

That's all I've got for this piece right now, but keep an eye out for the few other Work in Progress posts to come if you'd like to see what my other ideas are.

I hope you are all well, 

Take care and speak soon!